Home From the Hill
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPLM slash, twoshot. Harry finds it a strange world, where he keeps coming to Lucius even when he doesn't need to. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Home From the Hill

 **Disclaimer:** J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

 **Pairing:** Eventual Harry/Lucius, past Lucius/Narcissa

 **Warnings:** Some light angst, some violence, implied torture

 **Rating:** R

 **Wordcount:** This part 3300

 **Summary:** Harry finds it a strange world, where he keeps visiting Lucius Malfoy out of his own free will even when the necessity has stopped.

 **Author's Notes:** This is an Advent fic for alafaye, who gave me the prompt:

 _-either Snape/Harry/Draco or Lucius/Harry_

 _-not too much angst (I know, I know; you do angst so very well)_

 _-Prompt: welcome home kiss._

The title is from Robert Louis Stevenson's Requiem: " _Here he lies where he long'd to be;/ Home is the sailor, home from the sea,/ And the hunter home from the hill_."

This will be a two-shot.

 **Home From the Hill**

The first time Harry came to disturb Lucius Malfoy in the middle of his magnificent, lonely house arrest, it was because he needed information about the Lestranges.

Harry waited in front of Malfoy Manor's doors after his knock. The knock had been answered by a house-elf who had stared at him, squeaked, and whisked out of sight. Harry had no idea if that meant he would be getting someone to talk to him soon, or not. So he waited, and at last the door opened again, and Lucius stood there, staring at him.

Harry stared back. He could admit—revelation of the last few months that he'd fought silent, bitter battles with in his nights alone—that Lucius was well worth looking at. His hair was not as long as it had been, but on the other hand, it wasn't lank and unwashed the way it had looked during the trials, either. It shone almost pure white, and the cane he clutched, a new silver one with a head like a rearing cobra, complemented the severity of his dark robes.

"What can I help you with, Mr. Potter?"

Harry cleared his throat a little. "We're still searching for the Lestranges. I thought you might know where they're hiding."

"I assure you, they are _not here_."

Lucius almost hissed the words, and Harry stepped back with his hands up. "Okay, okay. But you know them best of all the people who are free of Azkaban. I thought you might have some ideas about where they're likely to go."

Lucius held still for a moment, studying him. "You could interview my wife."

"I did try," Harry admitted with a grimace. "She won't return any of my owls."

"How similar we are," Lucius said, and then turned and swirled into the Manor before Harry could make some sort of startled comment. "You might as well enter and sit down, Mr. Potter. This could be a long discussion."

Malfoy Manor looked different from the last time Harry had seen it. He supposed that wasn't a surprise; almost any place would look different with Voldemort gone. But he wondered at how light the heavy wooden frames of portraits, and the dark doors, and the gilt and silver ornaments, seemed.

Lucius settled him in a sitting room that was so spare Harry almost checked to make sure something in the doorframe wasn't a Portkey. It had two upright chairs, white and expensively uncomfortable, in front of the fireplace. It had a table in between them that balanced on three legs and had depressions for saucers. And that was all.

The tea was expensive, too, some kind of flavor that Harry didn't recognize but which had an edge of oranges. He inhaled it and put the saucer down in the nearest depression, studying Lucius in silence.

Lucius spent a moment studying his own tea with the silence of someone who had all the time in the world. Then he looked back up. His eyes could still cut, Harry saw. "Explain to me why you are the one searching for the Lestranges."

Harry's Auror training had told him that he should be the one asking the questions, not answering, but he found himself disregarding that and answering anyway. "Most of the rest of the Ministry doesn't care about them anymore. They caused some trouble right after the war, and everyone was all keen to arrest them _then_. But now they tell me that they've disappeared and I should only pursue active cases."

"What makes you think that the Ministry isn't right?"

Harry silently took out the letter he'd received a week ago and held it out to Lucius. He took it and smoothed it flat. A second later, an expression of quiet disgust coiled across his face.

Harry relaxed. His instructors had told him that he trusted too much to his instincts, and he had to analyze all the evidence, not decide someone was guilty or not guilty based on their expressions. But this time, Harry knew he had been right. Lucius looked too sincere to be conspiring with the Lestranges.

"Disgusting," Lucius commented, passing it back. "But then again, Rabastan usually was." He hesitated. "And that is definitely his handwriting."

"That's what I thought." Harry folded the letter up again and tried to ignore the conviction that it was silently staining his skin. "So. Anything you could tell me would be appreciated. And then I'll go away and stop bothering you."

"Does it look as though you are _bothering_ me, Mr. Potter?"

It was "Auror Potter," technically, but Harry didn't think he needed to remind Lucius of that. He just shook his head. "I don't know what you do to make house arrest less boring. I could have interrupted you in the middle of brewing a potion or something."

"Yes. Well." Lucius looked into his tea again, looked out the window, and then turned back to Harry with a cold spark in his face. "Something like this is a welcome diversion to make my life hold less of a certain frozen feeling."

Harry nodded, and then listened carefully to Lucius describe some of the ancestral Lestrange properties the brothers might have gone to. He had a charmed quill that wrote the notes down. Lucius glanced at it, but didn't speak directly to it the way Harry had found most people did. His eyes always came back to Harry's face.

Harry smiled when they were through and stood up, oddly relaxed. "Thank you, Mr. Malfoy. I appreciate your time and effort."

"You have a right to it if anyone does," said Lucius unexpectedly, and the way his eyes narrowed on Harry told Harry that he was thinking mainly of something else. "Do come back and see me again, Mr. Potter."

Harry blinked at that, but nodded as politely as he could and left the house. No elves escorted him out.

Harry found himself hoping that Lucius didn't sit by the fire and stare into his tea for the rest of the day. Harry wanted better for him.

 _And that is strange enough._

The Lestranges awaited. Harry shook off his strange mood and thoughts and turned on his heel outside the Manor's gates, hopefully Apparating to meet them.

* * *

"What brings you to me this time, Mr. Potter?"

Harry blinked at that, and struggled for a second to recall the last time he'd been at the Manor. Oh, right. When he'd had that disturbing letter from Rabastan, and he'd come to see whether Lucius knew anything about where they could be hiding. Harry had found and arrested them the next day.

Harry dismissed the thought. It wasn't important.

"I need some of your blood," he told Lucius. "Will you give it to me?"

Lucius's face had drained of the odd light that momentarily illuminated it with his first sentence, and now it looked grim and pinched and old. "Perhaps, if you tell me why you want it."

"Draco is missing," said Harry, and would have gone on speaking, ignoring the way that the rain dripped down his shoulders and made his hair cling to his forehead, but Lucius uttered a disgusted sound and dragged him through the front door.

"Come in. Sit down. Tell me how it happened and why I wasn't informed of this."

Harry moved with Lucius, because that would hurt less at the moment, and then sat down in the chair Lucius showed him and sighed. It wasn't the same sitting room as last time, since it was larger and grander and had plush chairs instead of small expensive ones. Harry was glad of that. At least he wouldn't get blood all over something that probably cost more than he would make in three years.

"You're hurt."

Harry nodded shortly. "I was trying to stop them when they took Draco."

"Why would you be involved at all?" Then Lucius held his hand up and shook his head. "No. Let me have your wounds tended first, and then you can tell me."

Harry ground his teeth. "Let me have your blood before you do that. It might not work for long."

Lucius gave a low chuckle that made Harry start. It seemed to start somewhere around the bottom of Lucius's chest before it bubbled its way to the top, and it was having an effect on the bottom of Harry's chest, as well.

 _Now is not the time for that,_ Harry told himself firmly, and shoved the sensation away.

"Nothing can block the blood ritual I'll show you," Lucius said confidently. "But you need to be in better shape when we go after them." A house-elf had arrived with what looked like a small glass case of bandages and potions, and Lucius opened it, hands moving with assured skill.

"We?"

"You thought I would let an already wounded Auror go off and face my son's kidnappers alone?" Lucius studied Harry and clucked his tongue. "I thought many things, Mr. Potter, but not that you were stupid."

So that confirmed he _did_ know Harry was an Auror and was just not using the title to fuck with him. Harry sighed. "You don't have combat training—"

"You forget what I was."

Harry shut up. Yes, he supposed being a Death Eater would be a special form of combat training, at that.

Lucius tended to Harry's wounds—a long, shallow slash down the side of his face, and a deeper cut on his shoulder—himself, which made Harry blink at him. But Lucius said nothing about the house-elf who still stood there holding the kit open. He just tended them, his face intent, and then stepped back and nodded at Harry.

Harry sighed and mopped some more water and blood out of his eyes. "Draco was kidnapped an hour ago. I was supposed to meet with him because he contacted the Ministry saying that he was being threatened into participating in illegal brewing activity, and he had finally decided to turn on the people threatening him, but he wanted my protection. They showed up as we were negotiating the terms of his surrender. They fought me and snatched him. I've spent the past hour running around the countryside after them trying to find them."

"Why would you think you knew where to find them?"

"Because one of them mentioned the name Nott." Harry leaned back and looked up at Lucius. "So I went to every house I could think of or look up that had some connection to the Nott family, but he wasn't at any of them."

Lucius looked down at him with calm, deep eyes. Harry stared wearily back. His head ached. His neck ached. His back ached. Apparating wildly from place to place took its toll on him, at least as much as the battle had.

"You moved quickly," was all Lucius said in the end, and handed the things he hadn't used back to the house-elf. "Well. It's possible that powerful magic, such as my comrade Trajan Nott used during the war, could block most blood rituals. But not the one I intend to use."

Harry nodded shortly. "Then you'll give me your blood?"

"I'll draw it myself," said Lucius. "Wait here while I fetch the implements I'll need."

He departed in a swirl of robes, even as Harry was opening his mouth to ask why he couldn't simply have the elves gather them. Harry closed his mouth and drummed the flat of his hand on the chair arm.

 _I'm sure he wants to rescue Draco even more than I do,_ he tried to remind himself. _It doesn't mean that he's taking unnecessary time. Maybe there's a special reason elves can't touch these ritual tools._

When Lucius came back in with a crystal rod and a silver knife, he came alone, which seemed to confirm that he needed house-elves not to touch his tools. Harry watched in interest as Lucius laid the tip of the crystal rod to his arm and began to murmur something over it without reaching for his wand.

Lucius was in the middle of the chant when he nodded sharply at the silver knife. Harry blinked, then got up and came over. He'd thought Lucius was going to do everything himself. And Harry had never done this particular ritual before. He hoped he wouldn't mess it up.

The way he brought the silver knife slashing down and drew Lucius's blood seemed to indicate he'd done it right, though. Lucius's blood stained the crystal rod deep crimson, and Lucius began to chant again, waving yet another knife, this one with a black handle, over the rod and making the blood practically sit up and do tricks.

Harry watched the swirls of red around the crystal rod, and wondered.

After all that, it seemed to happen in a blur, it was so fast. Lucius made a soft, satisfied sound, and shot a hand out. Harry almost put the knife in it, thinking that was what he was looking for, but instead, Lucius snatched his arm and dragged Harry along on the sudden journey that gripped them. It was faster than any Portkey Harry knew, but it was more like that than Apparition, whirling them along instead of squeezing them.

And then they were inside a broad room with an arched, vaulted ceiling and plenty of places to hide, and Harry was ducking one spell and firing back with a Stunner, and Lucius moved beside him like a great beast, calmly casting curses.

They found Draco in time. He was chained down to an altar with a silver five-pointed star around him that made Lucius exclaim and turn to face his son's kidnappers. Harry kept his back deliberately turned while he freed Draco from the chains and made sure he didn't have any spells on him that would activate when Harry helped him sit up.

That which he couldn't see Lucius doing, he didn't have to arrest him for.

Lucius told him, "It's over," at last. Harry turned around, and stepped out of the way as Lucius walked over to face Draco.

Harry knew their relationship hadn't been the best lately. He kept his head politely turned while he went to collect the kidnappers and Stun them and bind them and get ready to report their numbers and location to the Ministry.

When he came back, Draco was asleep in his father's arms. Lucius stood there gazing down at him, his own blond hair falling and swaying in a rhythm even slower than his blinking eyes.

Harry stood there looking at them in silence before he cleared his throat. His first thought was that he was jealous of Draco for having a father, someone who would come rescue him and hold him that way.

But he could admit later, in bed, that he was jealous of Draco for resting specifically in _Lucius's_ arms, and that was closer to the truth.

* * *

"Mr. Potter. To what do I owe the pleasure this time?"

Harry opened his eyes slowly. He turned his head, and stared. He was resting on a thick rug in front of a fire so hot that it felt as if it could actually melt the Frostbite Curse out of his limbs. That would be a first, he thought, as he stretched hugely and rolled towards it. He closed his eyes again. He didn't care if this was a delusion or a dream, as long as it let him rest.

"Mr. _Potter_."

 _Maybe not a delusion, with that voice._ Harry turned his head and opened hazy eyes to see Lucius bending over him, frowning at him. Harry sighed. "Sorry to inconvenience you, Lucius," he croaked. "I was—somewhere that I don't remember exactly, being tortured. I decided to try Apparating when they moved me from one room to another. I thought—I wasn't thinking. I wanted to try for somewhere safe, and—"

"The house-elves found you outside my gate," Lucius finished, his voice absolutely devoid of such simplicities as tone and inflection. "Strange that you consider Malfoy Manor safe, Mr. Potter."

"Huh." Harry looked at the fire again. "It's a long time since I've been warm." He stretched out a shaking hand, and sighed as some of the eternal cold did seem to melt away. "How strange." He closed his eyes again.

"Mr. Potter. Harry." Lucius's voice sounded closer this time, as though he was crouched down. "I need you to tell me. Where are you hurt?"

"Frostbite Curse bothers me the most," Harry said, and then stuttered out a laugh when Lucius impatiently shook his shoulder. "But. I hurt everywhere. I can't remember the last time I didn't hurt…"

"Yes, you've been gone some time." Lucius sounded grim. "And I think what you need right now is care. But first— _Finite Incantatem_."

Harry gasped as the shield of cold that the Frostbite Curse had laid over him melted, and languid, relaxing warmth rolled through him instead, as if he'd been dipped in melted batter. "Thank you, thank you, _thank_ you!" he said, and beamed harder at Lucius. Then he started to shiver.

He remembered little after that. There were house-elves bathing him at one point, he knew that. Harry thought about being embarrassed, then reminded himself that the torturers had seen all his bits at one point or another, and curled up tighter into the blissful existence that was cloths gently scrubbing him, and delicious food being popped down his throat bite by bite.

When he lay in what felt like an actual _bed_ (Harry couldn't help exploring the sides with his hands, and making soft seal-like noises as he marveled), Lucius came into the room. Harry knew him from the sound of his steps and turned his head, smiling. His eyes felt exhausted from the loss of his glasses and he couldn't see him that well, but he felt the moment when Lucius's hand descended on his forehead and smoothed away some of the sweat there.

"Inform," Harry asked around a huge yawn, "Ministry?"

"I did." Lucius's voice was quiet. "They wanted you to remain under observation in St. Mungo's."

"No. Want stay here." Harry didn't care that he sounded like a little child. He _deserved_ to stay here, after everything that had happened.

"I told them you were too injured to be moved," Lucius said. "Which is certainly true." A pause. "Mr. Potter, what did they _do_ to you?"

Harry shivered again. "Same people who took Draco. Don't wanna talk about it."

"Then you do not have to," said Lucius, and so firmly that Harry almost thought he meant that Harry didn't have to tell anything to the Healers and other people, either. "Rest." His hand moved and trailed slowly through Harry's hair, Harry's _clean_ hair.

Harry grabbed Lucius's wrist and held it there. "Pet me," he demanded.

"So I will," Lucius said, and his voice was so soft that Harry could pretend he said other things, things he wanted to hear. Harry closed his eyes and fell asleep with a smile on his face to the soft stroking of his hair.


	2. Chapter 2

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"Thank you again for being so cooperative."

"You need not leave so soon, Mr. Potter. I am happy to host you for dinner."

Harry blinked at Lucius, who gave him a bland smile and rested a hand casually near Harry's head on the back of the chair. "I wasn't aware that people coming out of house arrest hosted their questioning Aurors on a regular basis," Harry said cautiously.

"I don't know what most people coming out of house arrest do on a regular basis." Lucius sounded polite and mildly curious the way he so often did. "I don't often associate with them. But I know what _I_ like to do."

Harry met and held Lucius's gaze until he realized that Lucius wouldn't back away, and then he began to smile helplessly. "Yes. All right." He shook his head a little. "I'd be happy to stay for dinner, if the quality of your elves' cooking is anywhere near the quality of the tea you're always serving me."

"And here I thought the quality of my company would be the _main_ temptation."

Harry caught his breath. There was a glint of mischief in Lucius's eyes before he turned and walked in the direction of what Harry assumed was the dining room. It was an expression Harry had never seen before, and he couldn't help but wonder what it portended.

Harry followed, shaking his head. He'd come here to discuss the end of Lucius's house arrest, and what kind of scrutiny he would still be under (including a yearly Auror visit to make sure that he wasn't accumulating Dark artifacts). He'd thought he would explain and leave to start writing up his report.

Instead, it seemed he was going to sit at a large table spread with a white cloth, in front of a fireplace mantel carved with long, slinky hounds, and be invited, with the same perfect courtesy that Lucius always had, to take pieces of candied orange peel from a bowl in the center of the table.

Harry ate them and watched Lucius in silence. Lucius had changed over the last eight months since Harry had first visited him. He no longer kept the cane with him as often; Harry wasn't sure if it was that he needed it less or that he'd _never_ needed it and was putting it aside with Harry as a sign of trust.

Then again, there were a lot of things he was less than sure of with Lucius.

"One thing that strikes me," said Lucius, looking up, "is that you never talk about yourself when you're here, Auror Potter."

Harry blinked and pulled back his hand, which had been reaching towards the bowl. "What do you mean? I did tell you more about the torture that I went through when Draco's kidnappers caught me than anyone else knows. Even the Healers at St. Mungo's." He had only told the Healers the extent of his wounds, not what he had felt like while receiving them.

"You honor me with your confidence, Auror Potter."

Harry rolled his eyes a little. "And you are the only person I know who gets more formal instead of less with increasing intimacy."

"Were we discussing intimacy?" Lucius's eyes met and held his. "I wasn't aware."

Harry glanced down at his hands and focused on the color and shape of his nails until his breathing evened out. "You're disconcerting," he said, glancing up with a faint smile. _And I shouldn't be as attracted to you as I am._

"I meant to be, that time." Lucius studied him. "You have helped me, and accepted my help. And Apparated here because you thought my home was the safest place in the world. But you still hold yourself back from me in far more than the titles you use, Auror Potter."

"I don't really know what you mean, Lucius. You've seen me at my most vulnerable—"

" _Forced_ vulnerability. Because you had no choice about showing that to me; you were beaten down and couldn't choose how you reacted. Perhaps you would have said much the same to anyone who gave you a warm bed and a bath."

"But not everyone would have stayed with me the way you did, and—touched me the way you did."

It took Harry a lot of courage to say that, with his face burning so hard that he wished he had cool water around to soothe it. But Lucius's response was extraordinary, and justified the risk.

Lucius's eyes burned, his head twisted, the hand that had been resting on the edge of the table rose a little. None of those would have meant much to someone who didn't know Lucius. But Harry did.

He knew what they all meant. For once, he picked up a piece of candied orange peel and chewed on it with complete satisfaction.

The food appeared on the table then, and even the steam entering his nostrils made Harry feel like he was eating a full meal. He picked up his spoon and dived into the soup, deliberately not looking at Lucius.

Lucius touched Harry's hand with one long finger. Harry had to look up.

"I am pleased," Lucius said, his voice barely more than a breath. "Shall I show you how pleased?"

"That would be nice," Harry said, and his own voice was breathy and aroused; he couldn't believe how much.

Lucius stood and rounded the table. Harry stood up to meet him, reluctantly leaving the delicious food behind.

But Lucius's hand on his shoulder and tongue in his mouth were better.

* * *

"I wish that you would spend the night."

Lucius spoke the words without really looking at Harry. In fact, he was mostly looking at the fire. His mouth was soft and thoughtful.

But Harry knew what the request meant. For the past three months, he'd departed Malfoy Manor after dinner on the days he came to visit Lucius. They hadn't spent the night together, curled in the same bed. And neither had they gone much past jerking each other off and languid kisses. Not that those weren't wonderful in their own right.

Harry knew what Lucius was asking him now.

"Yes."

Lucius turned. As though a mask had fallen away, Harry knew he didn't have to look for subtle reactions this time. The broad, blatant ones were all over Lucius's face, and he stretched out a hand and then tried to pull it back as if he thought Harry would reject him on principle.

Harry laid his hand in Lucius's, and then he was drawn into the whirlwind.

The moments that lingered were the ones that Lucius made most real for him, the moments that weren't simply heat and pleasure—although those were certainly nice. Instead, Harry remembered how he had stumbled against the doorframe when Lucius took him to his bedroom, and how Lucius drew Harry's robe away from his shoulder and kissed it.

The smoothness of the sheets on Lucius's bed almost stung Harry's skin as he lay down. He stretched his arms back and forth, moving them up and down, and Lucius looked at him with calm, joyful eyes and asked, "Do you need a moment alone with my bed?"

Lucius undressed for the first time on his own, shaking his head when Harry would have sat up to help. His limbs were long and loose and as pale as the sheets.

Harry did undress with Lucius's help, because that was the way Lucius wanted it. Somehow, Harry had thought he would be reluctant to touch Harry's Auror robes. Aurors were the reason that Lucius had stayed under house arrest so long. They were the reason for his separation from his family. He never mentioned it, but Harry knew that the owls he had sometimes talked about sending to Narcissa and never getting back spoke volumes. Narcissa had moved on, and she wouldn't come back.

 _I don't know why that is._

Then again, Harry didn't think it was something he particularly needed to know.

Lucius's hands were as cool as the sheets, too, against his shoulders and throat. Harry lay there and let Lucius touch him for a moment as if he would strangle him. Then Lucius looked down and smiled, and his hair, which had grown out again over the last months, fell down around them.

Harry touched the faint, fine hairs on Lucius's arms, like dandelion fluff, letting them rise to his touch. Lucius lay there and watched only him, as if Harry's eyes were somehow more real than his hands.

"I am going to use a lot of lube," Lucius said, and instead of feeling upset or annoyed by that, Harry squirmed and lifted his arse.

He didn't retain every moment, later, of the time during which Lucius played with him, but he knew that part of it was the only time Lucius looked away from Harry's eyes all night. It seemed utterly important to him that none of his fingers hurt Harry.

When Lucius's cock came towards him, gleaming, then Harry arched to meet it, and surprised a soft breath out of Lucius.

"I've thought about this before, you know," Harry said, tilting his head back and letting Lucius stare at the bob of his throat.

Lucius made a sound that could have been surprise or intrigue or pure pleasure as he slid into Harry. Harry didn't think he particularly needed to know the nature of that sound, either. He hooked his ankles together behind Lucius's knees and held on.

Lucius moved inside him with eyes half-closed. Harry sometimes thought they were completely closed. Then he would catch a glimpse of grey beneath his lids, and that grey was always burning into him with intensity that Harry hadn't seen anywhere else.

Lucius whispered his name to him twice. Once when he reached down and traced a scar on Harry's chest that he had almost forgotten about, the one where Slytherin's locket had burned him. And once when he came, on a high, lilting breath that filled Harry's chest with immense confidence.

He came himself balanced on the softening edge of Lucius's cock and his brilliant eyes.

Any thought he might have had of getting up and leaving, or making things awkward, was stolen away by the way that Lucius curled around him and settled into him. His skin was cool, unexpectedly, with the drying sweat. Harry stroked Lucius's hair, letting it splay over his fingers, and felt something inside him settle, too.

* * *

"Hello."

Harry leaned out the door of his flat to kiss Lucius. Lucius kept him in the door, of course, holding him still with one finger in his hair and one finger on his chin as they kissed. Harry saw at least one gaping neighbor. He chose to ignore them.

"Welcome home," he added, and pulled Lucius into the drawing room. He knew he beamed at him like an idiot, but he couldn't help it. He was often an idiot around Lucius, just a better _class_ of idiot than he used to be. "How did it go?"

"Draco took the news better than I thought he would," Lucius replied, and sat down next to him on the couch. His fingers strayed softly across the side of Harry's neck and down to his shoulder. Harry sighed and tilted his head, closing his eyes. "Only a bit of shouting, and a bit more threatening to tell his mother about it."

"And you told him she already knew?"

"I did, indeed. And that I had her blessing."

Lucius's voice was soft, reserved. Harry knew why. The owl he'd got back from Narcissa telling him that, as far as she was concerned, their marriage was over and Lucius could do what he wanted with anyone else, was the first one he'd received from her since the war.

"Well, that's something, at least," Harry said. "I wouldn't give you up if I didn't have her blessing, but I wouldn't much care about it, either."

"That is the most romantic thing you have ever said to me."

Harry grinned. "Then I need to practice on saying romantic things more often." He leaned up and kissed Lucius, and Lucius entwined lazy fingers in Harry's hair and kissed him back.

"What about your friends?" Lucius added, when the kiss had ended and Harry was trying to concentrate on finishing the conversation, instead of simply telling Lucius they should go to bed right now. The hand on his thigh, tracing lazy, loose figures that resembled large eights or infinity signs, didn't help.

"They weren't that happy that I was dating you," Harry admitted. "But we've changed since the war. They don't think they need to protect me from myself anymore, and they know that I'm not going to insist they call you by your first name and get you Christmas gifts any time soon."

"I should hope not," said Lucius, and shuddered a little. "One of the jumpers that Weasley's mother makes might be acceptable, but not some of the books that Miss Granger thinks you need."

Harry stared at him with his mouth open, and knew he probably looked ridiculous. Lucius smiled back at him, the kind of faint smile that meant he was enjoying the expression on Harry's face. "What? The jumpers are warm and practical."

"But not beautiful," said Harry, because it was the only thing he could come up with. "Not elegant."

"Do you think I need that around me at all times?" Lucius asked quietly, and, while Harry was still scrambling for an answer, he touched the side of Harry's neck again. "Not to mention that I have it as long as you are with me."

Harry looked up at him and had nothing to say. But he had plenty to _do_ , including touching Lucius's jaw and eyelids and hair with his own shaking fingers. Lucius let him do it, smiling all the time.

They didn't make it to Harry's bedroom—their room, really, as it became more and more frequently now—that time, and Harry had the chance to think this wasn't beautiful or elegant. But when he watched the curve of Lucius's neck as he arched his head back against the wall, he decided that, actually, it probably was.

And when Lucius smiled at him, he decided that he didn't need to think.

 **The End.**


End file.
